Vintage Sale..! The Old New Chinese Revolution originals are up for auction!

From all the original artwork I did at the end of the 1990’s and beginning of the 2000’s, no other are dearer to my heart than the New Chinese Revolution Saga (1 to 4). They have been protagonists of several famous books including “Extreme Dinosaurs” (Luis V Rey Chronicle Books), the Gee/Rey “Field Guide To Dinosaurs” (Quarto Publishing), “Dinosaurs, The Ultimate Encyclopedia” by Holtz/Rey (Random House), “Extreme Dinosaurs Part 2, The Projects” and many more. I have used these originals in many exhibitions over the world, from the US to Mexico to England, Copenhagen and Italy. One of the last ones were in TetZoo in 2019. Digital murals of them are still part of our exhibitions with Gondwana Studios, like Hatching The Past and Dinosaur rEvolution (coming soon to the Horniman Museum in London).

No digital copies or murals this time: the items for sale are the very originals… I have decided to put them for auction on eBay too!

The printed pictures have never done them real justice. I remember showing the first New Chinese Revolution original painting to the staff at Dorling Kindersley in London around the early 2000’s… it was the beginning of the computer generated art and it was starting to be ubiquitous. I remember the people touching the originals feeling the texture as if it was something done in another planet! They are acrylics and inks on cardboard, in a mixed-media style that includes airbrush and an assortment of other techniques, including a unique use of acrylic “relief” that is impossible to appreciate when published. They are also sizeable: 75 X 55 cm. approximately.

These were a real part of the late Dinosaur Renaissance, immediately after we had the hard evidence for dinosaur feathers from the Yixian, Liaoning Province. They were a real tribute to my own personal dreams and science quest come true, and include some of the first depictions of a unique fauna like never revealed before in those ages… the then still not well known Beipiaosaurus, the more famous Caudipteryx, Sinosauropteryx, Confuciusornis, Jeholornis, Jixiangornis and the first depiction of the quilled Psittacosaurus as bone scavenger ever. Most of the art has aged fairly well in science terms, I think. Some, like Microraptor, look like relics… we still didn’t have the evidence for colours in those ages! And the depiction of Epidendrosaurus as a grub eater is still not found very often. It might have been a relative of Yi Qi!

They are in mint condition. If you want a piece of paleo art history now is the opportunity! They are searching for a good home that will appreciate them… As special offer, you can also contact me via email or message me here, in case you would like to purchase all four of them and we could reach an agreement!

l.victor_r@yahoo.co.uk

Some extra details of the originals…

Customising dinosaur toy atrocities… and taking to the streets in CDMX.

You wander around a shop or market anywhere…and suddenly… there it is: yet another modern-day dinosaur toy atrocity! Yes, this time another Schleich model, a label that is famous for its deranged, schizo dinosaurs (c’mon, not because “it’s for children” you shouldn’t be more careful!)… There’s obviously more than one designer in the company… and this new atrocity belongs to a series from the same designer.

And yet… just looking at it I saw possibilities that appealed to me… I had to rise to the challenge. I have a passion for these things (like James Pascoe would say…) … and when I saw this figure. I thought “this might just end up becoming a bearable model”.

A camel,-legged short-snout badly finished Edmontosaurus that boasts even a well-informed, late-minute head crest pretending to be “accurate” ?! You bet! Let’s get the scalpel… or the Dremel, whatever you prefer!

Then it’s epoxy putty time!… Wanted to add a big big nose to my Edmontosaurus this time.

And finally, paint time… it makes all the difference.

Customising models can be serious business for so many great artists… Take for example my next project… here’s just a taste of it… while waiting for the tail and legs to be added. This will be subject of another blog post when it’s finished… and is becoming a gruelling, but a long-time dream of mine… a life-sized Velociraptor bone by bone.

In the meantime, I leave you with the treat of some street art that needs no commentary… except an earthy ‘thank you’ to anybody that’s done it… finally Tlatolophgus, Angel Ramírez and… myself are taking to the streets in Mexico City! Pictures courtesy of Google Maps!… this is really beyond fun…

The quest for a different looking Tyrannosaurus face…

I think we have seen them all… from the ubiquitous bare teeth grin, to the sedated, solemn face of the T. rex from Prehistoric Planet.

In my quest for a new look for Tyrannosaurus I would like to start 2023 with a portrait of Stan that would defy convention and make him more avian than ever. I have tried it before but not to this extent: instead of having an extensively scaly snout, it has now a full horny coverage that is more like a beak… and these are the results… might be successful or not, but I had to try once again.

Yes, the toothy T rex is gone and for good reason. Every possible skull (including Stan) have the teeth virtually out of their sockets and, when you closely examine the teeth themselves, the enamel traces show very clearly what part was “out” or “in” the gums… as it happens most of the teeth were inside soft tissue and the roots were enormous. So much for the “banana” teeth grin… still the thickness and power of those teeth were bone crunching remarkable. Quite a few of them would show for sure, but not like the earlier reconstructions.

NEWS… a week of frantic activities: after the return to the Geology Museum in Mexico, now the return to TetZoo in London and a South American Paleoart Convention!

How long was it since at the last up close and personal TetZoo Meeting in London? 3 years, four years? I’m starting to show my age… but never forget the importance of being present and interact in person. I’m looking forward to meet all those friends that I have seen only by Zoom all this time!

So if anyone else wants to meet we will be >in person< at:

Contact Darren Naish at https://tetzoo.com/convention

Bush House
30 Aldwych
London, WC2B 4BG

I’m preparing to bring a good chunk of recent material that has not been published yet, and some of it is in progress… not even finished! However I will also be bringing plenty of copies of Extreme Dinosaurs Part 2... a very important chronicle of all the exhibitions I have been part in the last years.

But before all that… I’ll be appearing on Wednesday 30 at the:

Check your local times… everybody probably lives somewhere far away … so if you can and are interested, please do check when it is convenient for you and we will surely meet trans-oceanically in an interesting discussion about what has happened to the dinosaur iconic image after all these years… and what will happen in the future if we are not careful!

In the meantime I’m preparing myself and having fun constructing a life-size Velociraptor skeleton from scratch at my studio… vertebrae by vertebrae… a puzzle that I wasn’t expecting! Yes… anatomy is >my< thing!

As special news, I can announce that Dinosaur rEvolution will be at the Horniman Museum in February 2024… yes,Gondwana Studios is finally bringing it to Europe and we are searching for more venues. It might also be going to Mexico and America but for the time being the exhibition is being refurbished and revamped to an extent never see before.

See you all on Wednesday, Saturday and/or Sunday!

Mexico continues to be ace. A recent little scrapbook…

Day of the Dead at the Geology Museum in Mexico! First time ever Geoexplora could run an “in situ” paleo art class after years of the Covid scare… the Museum especially opened the doors for us! As you can see the decorations of the Day of the Dead around the Mammoth were dutifully performed by masters of their craft…

Ricardo Servín Pichardo gave us a guided tour to start with… and then we all sit down on the floor the best we could … right in front of the old Isauria (Latirhinus) skeleton, that served us well for the basics… that pesky articulation of the limbs was finally understood by most of the attendants. We also spoke about the fact that Latirhinus is no longer a kritosaur but a lambeosaur… still learning the basics of the anatomy was what counted.

And then… the nextweekewas quite a surprise… it was Rock Show time!… The greatest toy display in Mexico happens around the Metro Hidalgo, where thousands of dealers bring collector’s toys and other items to selll… and especially Dinosaur model dealers like Arturo PC and Tienda de Dinosurios have a field day., I was surprised greatly by several dinofans that brought the two editions of my Extreme Dinosausbooks for signings! Year after year Mexico never disappoints

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And, as in every trip I got lucky with some tailor-made new masterwork by Aldo Fomisaurus… this time he successfully raised to my challenge of Bajadasaurus and the new Jakapil!

Needless to say, last but not least, Héctor Munive provided me with a kit of his “fatty” Triceratops… I just customised and it is surprisingly VERY effective for such a chunky version of the animal… he definitively has done a great job at making graceful that what is definitively not

I thank especially Adriana Miranda for making the event possible (GeoExplora, the hardest working woman in Mexico) and Ulices Carrillo; Ricardo Servín and Arturo PC for their gracious support and inspiration. And also Hector Munive, Dalia Castillo, Eliot Munive, Aldo Fomisaurus and Yadira, Fede and family for being always there for us! See you all in TetZoo next…

Jakapil kaniukura… the new sensation from South America.

Hailed as a “mini-Godzilla”, although frankly I can’t see the resemblance (sorry Hector Munive)… this enigmaatic, tiny, newest of dinosaurs has been assigned to Thyreophora, and reconstructed as a close relative of Scutellosaurus, Scelidosaurus and sundry stegosaurs and ankylosaurs. It would be the first-ever obligatory bipedal armoured dinosaur with arms as puny in proportion as those of a theropodian Abelisaurid.

Problem is: First of all it is too fragmentary. There’s a lot of guess work here. We cannot be as certain as we would like of the distribution of the armour, in a case that reminds me of Acantholipan and its bogus spines on the hips. Second, the mandible is deep and, according to Thom Holtz, closely resembles ceratopsids… something that would make Jakapil a Marginocephalian, not a Thyreophoran. Third, to reconstruct it as a scelidosaur it would be an incredibly late, Cretaceous surviving relative of the Triassic/Early Jurassic Scutellosaurus or Scelidosaurus… and a running bipedal ankylosaur is unknown to say the least. The evolutionary trend in the evolution of Thyreophora has been in getting bigger and heavier, not towards slim runners.

So. is it a really completely different branch of Ornithischian armoured dinosaur? Or is it a ‘missing link’ marginocephalian as I propose here?

I have dared to reconstruct it in a different view… here Jakapil is really a primitive armoured marginocephalian between pachycephalosaurs and ceratopsians… we do not have the top of the skull, so it might be possible that it was as armoured as the rest of the body.

It would be the first armoured pachycephalosaur for sure. An almos perfect ancestor to the rest of pahycephalosaurs linked to the ceratopsians (but also linked to Thyreophorans somehow) via a characteristic different mandible. A puzzle. A fascinating missing link! More of the skeleton is needed to reach more conclusions. Hypothetical primitive bristles paired with the armour? Why not? The rest of the animal is almost as hypothetical at this stage.

Paper is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15535-6

Acantholipan, ankylosaurs, Jakapil kaniukura, marginocephalians, ornithischians, pachycephalosaurs, Scelidosaurus, Scutellosaurus, thyreophorans

Acantholipan, ankylosaurs, Jakapil kaniukura, marginocephalians, ornithischians, pachycephalosaurs, Scelidosaurus, Scutellosaurus, thyreophorans

Acantholipan, ankylosaurs, Jakapil kaniukura, marginocephalians, ornithischians, pachycephalosaurs, Scelidosaurus, Scutellosaurus, thyreophorans

The Joy of Customising Models and Casts, welcome back from Mexico, again!

Every time I come back from Mexico I bring a lot of samples from Hector Munive. Dalia Castillo and other Mexican sculptors and casters… that means hours and hours of further customising of quality casts that need to be “brought to life” with extreme care and detail. I enjoy every minute of it.

This time I got new samples of casts of Sinosauropteryx, Comnpsognathus and more. No computers here! Matching the colours with the original fossils is quite a challenge and I dedicate many hours to the completion of the pieces… As I did for the Caudipteryx before I expanded and refined techniques in order to making believable all the new pieces.

This cast of Sinosauropteryx is double the size of the most famous one where the feathers are so evident… the evidence for feathers for this one is at best sparse… but they are there no doubt. The claws are clear in this one too. The bones colour in the original fossil is lighter and the sediment looks different, which is tricky because everything changes from light to light. I thank Peter Norton from Gondwana Studios the challenge to make this better… we have one customised by him at the Dinosaur rEvolution exhibition. Don’t miss it!

Compsognathus on the other hand is a classic and needs to be restored to match similar colour to Archaeopteryx, since they both were found in the same famous deposits of Solnhofen, Germany. I might be missing some dendrite details in this one… but…

On top is is a great miniature Baryonyx skeleton in the process of fossilisation sculpted by Dalia and Hector. Under, some plaques of classic skulls: Eoraptor, Heterodontosaurus and Coelophysis. The Triassic section in my collection!

To complement the careful fossil model colour restoration, I’ve been working on some toys, including favourites that I feel I owe them some modifications to make them more believable… I have still some to go, but I first selected this Triceratops from Eofauna that I always liked, but one that regrettably went for the “full smile” cheek-less look that certain paper has brought to the fore… and that I don’t buy at all.

I know this Triceratoops may look fashionable, but , even if they are very distant relatives there are two things that a turtle and Triceratops share… they are both reptiles and they have beaks… if you look closely to the turtle pictures, the “cheeks” of the turtle attach precisely at the end of the beak… they are no cheeks at at al… they are merely flaps of skin that cover the sides of the jaws in order to keep the food inside.

If we count that Triceratops, on top of it all, has a distinctive inner cavity along the jaws, just before or after the beak (your choice), occupied by a full battery of teeth, it is obvious to me that the feature is there to process food and they needed the flap of skin to keep it inside. The muscle attachment is not discussed or doubted here… these are no cheeks in the mammal sense, but that cavity with its teeth must have been covered.

My advice to all model makers: don’t be fashion victims please! Thank you.

What could be next.,.. more Pathologies perhaps?

Dinosaur rEvolution in Christchurch, NZ. Best one yet!

As Dinosaur rEvolution continues its merry Australasian Tour, I’m happy to announce that this latest outing is getting closer to the essence of the exhibition. Now with Peter Norton from Gondwana Studios closer to the venue it is evident his control over the whole thing gets better and better, and I find these (his photos) simply awesome… Thank you… we just hope we can continue with more venues to the exhibition and finally deliver it to America and Europe.

A toy, a Mexican street shop, a dinosaur nut and what came after…

This for your Sunday solace and merriment… the moment I saw a toy bust of a Tyrannosaurus in a popular Mexican shop on my recent trips to Mexico, I understood what I needed to do to it.

I love revamping and re-doing objects with potential into something completely different… even if that means I have to re-do it completely, or at least in parts.

There were two resin T. rex busts in the shop, a bigger one that, since it was a blatant rip-off of the regular Jurassic Park T. rex, there was nothing to be done… and another that actually was closer anatomically to a a real tyrannosaur … whoever did this toy was actually making an effort! But to get it completely right, I needed to do the pertinent modifications… and that would take a lot of time and effort. Obsessive fun you might say.

As you can see, it tried to bit me right from the start!

The arms and claws were originally quite big, in the wrong posture and it had no chest. The fingers were disproportioned. The skin texture was crocodilian…. still …there was something appealing to it. So with the help of my friends of the Soteno/Jimenez workshop the first thing I did was chop everything off … and put the pieces in the luggage! Good that I did it, because it might have become a burden to transport as it was. I turned it literally into a resin kit!

On arrival from Mexico, I started the pending job. I had to reconstruct the hands, arms and chest first.Pulverised resin anyone? What chaos, drilling and sanding! I even printed casts of fossil skin as texturisers to the epoxy putty I used as modelling filler. Part of the arms were inserted inside the body and the fingers were more or less re-proportioned and redone.

After repainting (the chest skin looked great with the texturiser) . I started the final part of the job. New skin! But this time would be a combination of fake furry skin and ornamental feathers… et voila … the final product, even if not perfectly proportioned as a real Tyrannosaurs rex, it could pass fairly well as a juvenile T. rex… Nanotyrannus anyone? No, more like “Jane” the young Tyrannosaurus rex.

I added fur and feathers only in the places I thought were most probable. No more crocodile skin… no more naked skin everywhere either. Hope it is annoying enough to the “no-feathers T. rex”

So here it is. Like it or not, it is indeed a Luis V. Rey juvenile Tyrannosaurus added to my collection… the difference with the original toy is quite striking. Wonders can be done with few resources and a little imagination.

All change! Latirhinus uitstlani (Isauria)gets a new drastic make-over and moves genera thanks to Mexican researchers.

Palaeontology is a discipline always in state of flux. Especially -in this case – Mexican Palaeontology… the mural of our well received “Hecho En Mexico” Gondwana Studios exhibition at the Alpha Museum in Monterrey (now in the Museo del Desierto. Saltillo) takes a drastic turn!

In my recent trips to Mexico, and given the precautionary times that are affecting every one of us, I had a video conference with my long-time “boss” Angel Ramírez Velasco to whom I’m eternally grateful for allowing me collaborate with him in the version of Tlatolophus that made it to the cover of the prestigious magazine Arqueología Mexicana.

This time he had for me yet another long-time-coming “surprise” that would affect the way we all have been reconstructing the famous hadrosaur Latirhinus, better known as Isauria.

For ages it was the most complete Mexican dinosaur skeleton restored and mounted in the Museo de Geología in Mexico City. We were confident that what we were seeing was accurate and the best possible restoration. Angel Ramírez et al had other ideas after meticulous scrutiny of the fossils.

From the very beginning Isauria was reconstructed as a hadrosaur similar to Kritosaurus and I had dutifully followed that reconstruction. The skeleton was marvellously preserved and repaired by Ricardo Servín Pichardo. However, in a new paper published in the Journal of Paleontology he came to the conclusion that Isauria was not a hadrosaur in the Kritosaurus sense… it was a lambeosaur.

In a last minute correction, Claudia Serrano Brañas together with Albert Prieto Márquez , agreed with Angel but came to the conclusion that not only Isauria was not a hadrosaur, they also claimed that some bones were not from Isauria and were mixed up with the original specimen and misinterpreted….all the researchers agreed is that the original material of Isauria was indeed a lambeosaur not the hadrosaur as originally reconstructed, more akin to several other Mexican lambeosaurs like Magnapaulia or Velafrons (especially this later one).

The fact was that we did NOT have a single bone the head at all! So even if corrected according to the new research, the head is still guess-work. According to Claudia some of the bones don’t belong to the original Latirhinus, and a complete reconstruction would be at this stage a chimera.

What we finally did have for certain were several leg bones and thoracic vertebrae of Latirhinus that in comparison made it more similar to Velafrons than any other hadrosaur..So Angel felt confident at the end that we now have to modify the original idea into a completely different animal, that is more similar to the famous American Corythosaurus. These are the hazards of the Paleo restorer… you are always in danger that well-known illustrations can become obsolete or a “relic” like I say, in a question of minutes.

Thanks to the computer, I am able to correct and modify the original artwork to comply with the new specifications.

I thanking Angel and Claudia for disclosing and talking at length to me about this meticulous research, and the opportunity to virtually illustrate a brand new dinosaur… the lambeosaur Latirhinus uitstlani. The rest of the body is correct. including the pathologies.

The Old

The NEW!

And the papers..

Ramírez-Velasco et al 2021 Taxonomic affinities of Latirhinus uitstlani.pdf – Google Drive.htmlDownload

serrano-branas-and-prieto-marquez-2021-taphonomy-latirhinusDownload